Britain's Deadly Peril: Are We Told the Truth?Le Queux, William
History
Britain's Deadly Peril: Are We Told the Truth?
Le Queux, William
Secret service -- Germany; Spies; World War, 1914-1918
Take another example--that of a German hotel-keeper who, living on
the coast north of the Firth of Forth, was proved to have tapped the
coast-guard telephone, and yet he was allowed to go free!
A lady, well known in London society, writes to me requesting me to
assist her, and says: "I have been working for five months to get a
very suspicious case looked into, and all the satisfaction I get
is that 'the party is being watched.' I _know_ to what extent this
same person has been working against my country and I should much
appreciate an interview with you. I could tell you very much that would
be of great benefit to the country, but it of course falls on deaf
ears--officially."
Another correspondent asks why Germans, naturalised or unnaturalised,
are allowed to live in the vicinity of Herne Bay when none are allowed
either at Westgate or Margate. In this connection it is curious that it
is from Herne Bay the mysterious night-signals already described first
appear, and are then transmitted to various parts of the country.
In another letter the grave danger of allowing foreign servants to
be employed at various hotels at Plymouth is pointed out, and it is
asked whether certain houses in that city are not hot-beds of German
intrigue. Now with regard to this aspect of affairs Mr. McKenna,
answering Mr. Fell in Parliament on March 10th, said he had no power
to impose conditions on the employment of waiters, British or alien,
and so the suggested notice outside hotels employing aliens was not
accepted.
From Tunbridge Wells two serious cases of suspicion are reported, and
near Tenterden, in Kent, there undoubtedly lives one of our "friends"
the night-signallers, while in a certain village in Sussex the husband
of the sub-postmistress is a German, whose father, a tradesman in a
neighbouring town, I hear, often freely ventilates his patriotism to
his Fatherland.
That the "pirate" submarines are receiving petrol in secret is an
undoubted fact. At Swansea recently a vessel bound for Havre was found
to have taken on board as part of her stores 400 gallons of petrol. She
was not a motor-boat, and the Customs authorities were very properly
suspicious, but the captain insisted that the petrol was wanted as
stores, and that there were no means by which we could prevent that
petrol going. Where did it go to? There were boats no doubt in the
neighbourhood which wanted petrol. _They were enemy submarines!_
Of isolated reports of espionage, and of the work of Germany's secret
agents, dozens lie before me, many of which certainly call for
strictest investigation. But who will do this work if the "authorities"
so steadily refuse, in order to bamboozle the public, to perform their
duty?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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